If Emily Dickinson were my friend, we'd have to have a long chat, preferably over a full bodied merlot and cigarettes. First off, I'd have to get her to come out of her shy, shackled seclusion and leave the security of her home and her generation. We could talk about lost loves, the delicacy of the spirit, and what it means, exactly, to have faith in...anything, really. I'd ask about why she allows diction and syntax to imprison her in such melancholy moments, and then I'd read some Dorothy Parker to her as an experiment to see if she would laugh or cry, or do both at the same time. Finally, I would address the Truth found in this poem and ask her how she knew:
202
by Emily Dickinson
This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond -
Invisible, as Music -
But positive, as Sound -
It beckons, and it baffles -
Philosophy - don't know -
And through a Riddle, at the last -
Sagacity, must go -
To guess it, puzzles scholars -
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown -
Faith slips - and laughs, and rallies -
Blushes, if any see -
Plucks at a twig of Evidence -
And asks a Vane, the way -
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit -
Strong Hallelujahs roll -
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul -
3 comments:
Moments like that keep Emily Dickenson high on my list. Thanks for the gem.
Yeah, I'd mostly just ask her about the dashes. Then I'd go read some Anglo-Saxon poetry. :-)
my favorite emily (probably motivated by the dirty little non-name) is poem XXX.
I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro...
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